Two Colorado parents are grieving the unthinkable loss of their 10-year-old daughter after she took her own life following allegations of severe bullying.
Ashawnty Davis, a promising fifth-grader at the Sunrise Elementary School part of the Cherry Creek School District in Aurora, Colorado, died Wednesday after doctors removed her from life support at a children’s hospital, KDVR reported. She reportedly hanged herself in a closet at home after a video of a fight involving her was posted to an app in October that left her under the thumb of merciless bullies.
Ashawnty reportedly only confronted another female student accused of bullying her in the cellphone video posted to the app Musical.ly, the report said.
“She was devastated when she found out that it had made it to Musical.ly,” Latoshia Harris, Ashawnty’s mother, said to KDVR. “My daughter came home two weeks later and hanged herself in the closet.”
The Davis family’s loss sheds light on harrowing statistics about bullying. More than one out of every five , or 20.8 percent, students report being bullied, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.
An overwhelming amount of kids who are bullied don’t report it, according to many educators. Most bullied children are at a higher risk of anxiety, depression and other negative outcomes. Particularly, race-related bullying is “significantly associated with negative emotional and physical health effects,” according to work published in the Journal of Health Psychology.
